Blackmar, Elizabeth S.

Mary and David Boies Professor of American History

Office Hours

Spring 2024: ON SABBATICAL

Education

Ph.D. — Harvard University, 1981
B.A. — Smith College, 1972

 

Interests and Research

Elizabeth Blackmarprofessor, specializes in social history of American property relations and the built environment. She received her B.A. from Smith and her Ph.D. from Harvard. Her publications include The Park and the People: A History of Central Park (with Roy Rosenzweig, 1992) and Manhattan for Rent, 1785-1850 (1989).Articles include “Of REITS and Rights: Absentee Ownership at the Periphery” in City, Country, Empire: Landscapes in Environmental History (2005); “Appropriating the Commons: The Tragedy of Property Rights Discourse”in The Politics of Public Space (2005); “Peregrinations of the Free Rider: The Changing Logics of Collective Obligation,” in Transformations in American Legal History: Essays in Honor of Morton Horwitz (2008); and  “Inheriting Property and Debt: From Family Security to Corporate Accumulation,” in Capitalism Takes Command: The Social Transformation of Nineteenth-century America (2011). 

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